In his biography of Cicero, Plutarch quotes from Augustus an admission that the future emperor had once made use of Cicero's lover of power (philarchia) by offering to support the orator for a second consulship in return for Cicero's help. This incident allegedly dates from the period after Caesar's death when Octavian feared that he would otherwise be left without political support.

If the Phaedra is Seneca's best-known play, it has suffered more than any other from inadequate or misdirected critical attention. Most accounts have been preoccupied with its similarity or dissimilarity to the Hippolytus of Euripides, or else with its rhetorical luxuriance. The first group has spoken of it as a not very meritorious rewrite of Euripides' play (Version I, II, or mixed). Méridier, for example, in his Hippolyte d'Euripide devotes a chapter to the Phaedra, giving a résumé of the plot, listing parallels and discrepancies with the Hippolytus, and providing by way of conclusion an ‘étude littéraire’. In this he treats the play as mere adaptation, remarking ‘on voit ce que l'œuvre de Sénèque a perdu au changement’. Where Seneca has introduced originalities, ‘ces scenes nouvelles ne témoignent pas toujours … d'un art très heureux’.

Both Herodotus and Aristotle record the first known contact between Athens and the Macedonian area. It occurs in the time of Peisistratus, specifically during his second (?) exile. Herodotus refers briefly to revenues which Peisistratus collected from the Strymon region, which helped him recover his power (i. 64. 1). Aristotle in more detail states: ‘Peisistratus joined with others in the settlement of Rhaecelus in the Thermaic Gulf area. From there he went to the Pangaion region from which he raised money …’ (A.P. 15. 2).

Herodotus' reputation as a critical historian has been increased by such a wealth of articles and papers recently that it might seem superfluous to add to the bulk of material already available. There are, however, some radical notions embodied in Herodotus' treatment of the Trojan War to which further attention should be drawn.

The contrasts could hardly be drawn more boldly than in the speech On the Crown: from the majestic tone of the prayers that articulate the opening, the conclusion, and some transitions (18.1, 8, 141, 324) to the scurrility of the portrait of Aeschines' parents (18.129–30), from the noble conception of Athens' historical mission as leader in the fight for freedom (18.66ff., 199ff.) to the reading off of the names of the traitors of all the Greek states, a veritable muster-roll of infamy (18.295), from the portrait of the orator's own work in building a resistance to Philip (18.79–94,169ff.) to the depiction of his opponent's inertia, venality, obstructionism, and collaboration with the enemy. Black and white divide the canvas between them with very little room reserved for shading.

The Romans were oriented toward warfare and their highest honour was the iustus triumphus of the successful general. For the commanders glory, but the soldiers in the legions were subject to severe discipline and rarely received mention in the literary sources. This was natural because of the numbers involved, but the aristocratic nature of the Roman Republic made even more striking the difference between the treatment of aristocratic officers and the men in the line. After Cannae, Varro, the general responsible for the disaster, and Cornelius Scipio, tribune of the soldiers, both escaped death. Varro was publicly thanked quod de re publica non desperasset (Liv. xxii. 61.14). He was not given an army command again, but Scipio was given the highest commands and lived to gain the cognomen ex virtute Africanus. The fate of the common soldiers who survived was very different: various penalties, including service to the end of the war (xxiii. 25. 7), and service without pay in 215 (xxiii. 31. 2), Later their plea for remission of punishment was met with chill haughtiness by the Senate (xxv. 5. 10–7. 4).

This article, which makes no claim to scholastic profundity, arose from a discussion as to whether the use of a supine to translate a purpose clause after misit was admissible in G.C.E. ‘A’ level Latin Prose.

This construction, which describes action as a goal of motion, is explained in probably all syntax books used in schools: e.g. North and Hillard, Latin Prose Composition, has a note (p. 110) in which the following examples are given of ways to express purpose:

Legates misit ut pacem peterent

qui pacem peterent

ad pacem petendam

pacis petendae causā

pacem petitum

It is also noted that the future participle (pacem petituros) occasionally occurs in this sense. This use is so rare that I do not propose to consider it.

His rebus gestis, ex litteris Caesaris dierum viginti supplicatio a senatu decreta est. With these words Caesar ends the account of his campaign in Gaul in 55 B.c.

One of the aspects of Lessing's misinterpretation of Aristotle1 which deserves a comment is the question of the Greek text used by the author of the Hamburg Dramaturgy for his translation and discussion of Aristotle's sentence describing the nature and function of tragedy (Poetics vi. 2; 1449b). Mr. K. A. Dickson (p. 54) quotes the text of the modern editions:

(1) ἔστιν ον τραγῳδία μίμησις πράξεως σπουδαίας καὶ τελείας μέγεθος ἐχούσης, ἡδυσμένῳ λόγῳ χωρὶς ἑκάστῳ τῶν εἰδῶν τοῑς μορίοις, δρώντων καὶ οὐ δι' ἀπαγγελίας, δι' ἐλέου καὶ φόβου περαίνουσα τὴν τῶν τοιούτων παθημάτων κάθαρσιν.

Most of us are aware that Rome possessed a harbour town at the mouth of the Tiber and that the ruins of the town are well worth a visit; but how many of us know the story of Ostia, the extraordinary interest attaching to it, the information it supplies on the economic life of Rome, and the great difficulties the Roman engineers had to face in constructing a really serviceable harbour ? Ostia lies about 20 miles from Rome, and for us, thinking in terms of motor-cars and trains, it is far from easy to imagine and to realize how long and difficult this journey must have seemed in the earliest times when the Romans first sought to establish connexion with the coast—not to speak of the dangers to which a traveller in those days must have been exposed. On arrival, we see the far-stretching ruins of the city lying before us in deep silence, for not merely its inhabitants have left Ostia but the sea and the river as well. The tawny Tiber, carrying down sand from the mountains, is the chief cause of the coastline shifting yearly no less than nine yards farther away; the river too has changed its bed and, in doing so, deprived Ostia of the last vestiges of her former greatness.

No reader of Herodotus would wish away the story of Arion's rescue by the dolphin (1. 23–4), or could imagine the story better told. The development of the story reflects epic models. At the outset we have the mention of a marvel, that of a man who rode on a dolphin's back; then the rapid narrative leading to the marvel itself, with much vivid detail lavished on the three central scenes (Arion's singing in his ceremonial robes, his leap into the sea, and the rescue itself); next the hurrying to the denouement, the confrontation between Arion and the sailors; and the ancecdote ends as it began, with an allusion to the man on a dolphin's back – this time in the shape of a bronze statue, still to be seen at Taenarum. The narrative contains everything needed to make it immediately comprehensible, but all superfluous elements have been suppressed. Even the initial reference to Arion as the leading lyre-player of his time is by no means an irrelevant detail: the fact is crucial to the way in which the anecdote is shaped, for this would have turned out quite differently, had Arion not been so famous for his skill.

The question of cognomina tends to be over-simplified in the elementary textbooks, where one meets such statements as: ‘Most Romans had three names … of which the third defines the familia within the gens.’ Such brevity is doubtless pedagogically convenient, but it has its dangers, particularly in respect of one of the most important periods in Roman history and literature, the late Republican; for there exceptions to this rule are so numerous and important as to make it almost meaningless. To demand greater accuracy in this matter is not mere pedantry; already a tradition is being established powerful enough to influence those whose business it is to know better, even leading, as I shall show later, to the misinterpretation of texts.

Book nine of Ovid's Metamorphoses begins with Achelous telling Theseus and his companions the reason behind the lack of one of his horns. It turns out that the river god has lost it during a fight against Hercules, while they were both wooing Oeneus' daughter, Deianira. The other suitors, realizing that they would not stand a chance against such rivals as Hercules and Achelous, left the contest. While the whole competition seems initially to have depended on the ability to convince Oeneus through self-praise, Hercules' intolerance of the river god's sophisms causes the verbal duel to become a hand-to-hand fight. This fight results in Achelous' defeat and loss of both Deianira and his horn.

Variety is a keynote of Ovid's Metamorphoses: variety of myth is complemented by variety of structure and style to create a symphony of sophisticated versatility. From this arise complex techniques of wit and it is the purpose of this paper to investigate these within myths which are basically similar. It is our purpose to examine comparatively three myths in order to elucidate the particular form of wit which predominates in each.

This article explores Alexander Pope's experience as a translator of the Iliad and the Odyssey, particularly his engagement with Homer as a poet and his biographical tradition. The study focuses on how Homer features in Pope's correspondence as he worked on the translations, how the Greek poet is described in the prefatory essay by Thomas Parnell and Pope's own notes to the text, and finally how his physical presence materializes in the illustrations within Pope's translations. The article suggests that, by engaging with the biography of Homer, Pope explores issues such as poetic authority and divine inspiration, promotes his own translations against European competitors, and ultimately establishes himself as a translator and as a poet. Throughout the process, Homer appears as a presence that forces Pope constantly to challenge himself, until he feels he can stand a comparison with the greatest poet ever.

There is an abundance ‘to eat’ in the pages of Roman literature, where lavish and exotic dishes crowd the tables at banquets that flatter and fortify indulgent and insatiable appetites in unrestrained festivals of eating and drinking. As Emily Gowers explains, ‘Imperium had turned Rome into the world's emporium: its alimentary choices are presented as almost infinite, from the turnips of Romulus to the larks' tongues of Elagabalus’. Nevertheless, in Roman society, where the food a person ate (its quality, quantity, and presentation) reflected their station in life and where large numbers of the population struggled at subsistence levels, these literary banquets are neither reliable, nor even factual, accounts of a Roman meal. In fact, food or events of consumption appear to have occupied an ambivalent, even undistinguished, place in Roman literature, which typically saw their inclusion in comedy, satire, epigram, and the epistle but not the serious genres of epic, tragedy, elegy, or lyric. Generic considerations could possibly therefore influence an author's inclusion of culinary description in ancient literature, although food details did not merely satisfy these expectations and were typically shaped by the attitudes, social values, or artistic insights of an individual author.